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A review by lmkanne96
One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London
2.0
I really wanted to like this book! I loved the idea of this book, but I felt like the characters all fell flat. The author worked too hard to make sure that she had a diverse cast of characters that it seemed as if she was checking the boxes… plus size character? ☑️ Asian character? ☑️ Black character? ☑️ Asexual character? Gender non-conforming character? ☑️☑️ that’s great but every character read the same for me…
Not only that, but I had a hard time rooting for the main character, Bea. At over 400 pages, this book could have dropped 50 of those pages if the author didn’t remind us the backstory of her insecurities every time she made a decision. I read the same explanation of thoughts at least 15 different times. State is once, maybe twice, and then assume your reader knows the information.
The last issue I had with this book is the hypocrisy of the main character… she’s body positive but cant believe that anyone would look beyond her body type when speaking with her. She even goes as far as being irritated when her possible matches on Main Squeeze all have similar body types. So they can’t judge you for your body but you can judge them for theirs? The worst example of hypocrisy is how she cannot bring herself to trust the men fighting for her attention when they’ve given her no reason not to trust them; however, she easily and repeatedly trusts Lauren, the executive producer, who consistently breaks her trust and does multiple things seemingly for the sake of hurting Bea.
As a fan of bad reality tv, I had high hopes that this book would embody the chaos of those shows, but it just gave me a whole list of unlikeable characters and a predictable ending.
Not only that, but I had a hard time rooting for the main character, Bea. At over 400 pages, this book could have dropped 50 of those pages if the author didn’t remind us the backstory of her insecurities every time she made a decision. I read the same explanation of thoughts at least 15 different times. State is once, maybe twice, and then assume your reader knows the information.
The last issue I had with this book is the hypocrisy of the main character… she’s body positive but cant believe that anyone would look beyond her body type when speaking with her. She even goes as far as being irritated when her possible matches on Main Squeeze all have similar body types. So they can’t judge you for your body but you can judge them for theirs? The worst example of hypocrisy is how she cannot bring herself to trust the men fighting for her attention when they’ve given her no reason not to trust them; however, she easily and repeatedly trusts Lauren, the executive producer, who consistently breaks her trust and does multiple things seemingly for the sake of hurting Bea.
As a fan of bad reality tv, I had high hopes that this book would embody the chaos of those shows, but it just gave me a whole list of unlikeable characters and a predictable ending.